Nuevo Tango Concertos by Piazzolla and Massa Berliner Symphoniker, Omar Massa & Mark Laycock

• Omar Massa (b. 1981):
• 1Massa: Concerto for Bandoneon and Chamber Orchestra, Buenos Aires-Berlin: 1. Prologue & Tango06:47
• 2Massa: Concerto for Bandoneon and Chamber Orchestra, Buenos Aires-Berlin: 2. Prayer, Adagio03:25
• 3Massa: Concerto for Bandoneon and Chamber Orchestra, Buenos Aires-Berlin: 3. Tango Scherzo, Finale03:36
• 4Massa: Buenos Aires Resonances for Bandoneon and Strings05:07
• 5Massa: Negro Liso03:16
• 6Massa: Tango Legazy for Bandoneon and Strings05:39
• Astor Piazzolla (1921 - 1992):
• 7Piazzolla: Bandoneon Concerto Aconcagua for Bandoneon, Strings Orchestra and Percussion: I Allegro Marcato07:39
• 8Piazzolla: Bandoneon Concerto Aconcagua for Bandoneon, Strings Orchestra and Percussion: II Moderato08:17
• 9Piazzolla: Bandoneon Concerto Aconcagua for Bandoneon, Strings Orchestra and Percussion: III Presto07:11
• 10Piazzolla: Tangazo: Variations on Buenos Aires for Orchestra16:08
• Total Runtime01:07:05

Info for Nuevo Tango Concertos by Piazzolla and Massa

"Astor Piazzolla, the great Argentine composer and bandoneon player, was born exactly a century ago in 1921. Fascinated by the music of Bach, Mozart and Chopin, Piazzolla wanted to compose great classical music. From Alberto Ginastera he received lessons in orchestration, composition and conducting, as well as in literature and poetry. Following his studies with Ginastera, Piazzolla received a scholarship to study in Paris with the renowned pianist and composer Nadia Boulanger. Under her guidance, he began to conceive of and perfect his own style of composition.

Composer and bandoneon player Omar Massa hails from Buenos Aires and has lived in Berlin since 2019. He is seen by music critics as the successor to Astor Piazzolla, whose work he has been performing from the age of six. Massa is considered to be an ambassador and champion of Argentine music as he too creates bridges to classical music with his own compositions. He combines minimalism with contemplative spaces, creates impressionistic colours, uses unusual meters and expands harmonic language without losing the inner melancholy of the true Tango Nuevo. Massa catapults the music of Buenos Aires into the 21st century."

Omar Massa, bandoneon
Berliner Symphoniker
Mark Laycock, Dirigent

Omar Massa
is a bandoneon player, composer and arranger from Buenos Aires – Argentina, based in Europe since 2016. Regarded by the critics as an expert on Astor Piazzolla’s music – whose work he has interpreted from the age of six – Omar has often been the connecting bridge between classical music and Argentine tango music. He has performed and participated in projects with internationally renowned artists such as Placido Domingo, Eugene Kohn (Conductor of Maria Callas, Luciano Pavarotti), Bruno Delepelaire (1st Cello soloist, Berlin Philharmonic), Tomasz Tomaszewski (Concertmaster, Deutsche Oper Berlin), Máté Szücs (1st Viola soloist, Berlin Philharmonic), Markus Däunert (Concertmaster & co-founder of Claudio Abbado’s Mahler Chamber Orchestra), and Janne Saksala (1st Double Bass soloist, Berlin Philharmonic).

Omar has been a pioneer in taking his instrument to concert halls to play works from the academic repertoire, especially those from the European and Latin American Baroque. As a soloist he has performed with symphony orchestras and chamber groups like the Asturias Symphony Orchestra, the Romanian National Radio Orchestra, the Buenos Aires Philharmonic, the Moldova Philharmonic Orchestra, the Biel Solothurn Symphony Orchestra, the Philharmonic Stat Sibiu, the Brasov Philharmonic, the Kamerata Kronstadt among others. Omar has played in several important venues such as the Lincoln Center (New York), the National Concert Hall (Dublin), the Colon Theatre (Buenos Aires), the Palace of Fine Arts (Mexico DF) and the George Enescu Festival (Bucharest). As a composer he has written several works, among which his ‘Suite Patagonia’ and ‘Concertango’ were premiered in the Chamber Music Season of the Palace of Fine Arts of Mexico in 2013. Omar was nominated for the Gardel Music Awards 2014 (most important award in the recording industry in Argentina) for his CD ‘Tribute to Piazzolla’ and 25 years after Astor Piazzolla´s death (2015) his family invited him to play Piazzolla´s bandoneon. In addition to his artistic endeavours, Omar has conducted courses and masterclasses on bandoneon and on Astor Piazzolla’s music in universities around the world. His tours have been declared of ‘Cultural and Artistic importance to the country of Argentina’ by the Argentine Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

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